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My grandmother had a really old book of fairy tales. It pulled no punches. The evil sisters in Cinderella tried to fit into the magic shoes. One cut off her heel and the other cut off her toes. The prince was no fool, he spotted the blood. I can only imagine the uproar over a book like that now. But that original Cinderella taught me an important lesson. People will resort to extreme measure for money.

I'm a Hamelin native - and live in Coppenbrügge. I hike through the ITH (Koppenberg/Calvarienberg) almost daily. It's the mountain to which the piper led the children. They vanished in the pit "Teufelsküche" (devil's kitchen), still a very mystical place today. I'm just in the process of writing a local mystery & adventure audio drama including all this.

Facts no one needs to know: the Grimm brothers traveled through Germany (primarily Hessen) and wrote down the fairy tales they have been told by other people, so thanks to the brothers Grimm, a lot of German folklore and fairy-tales survived because they were one of the few that could write and read and they used it to record the stories for the later generations.

Thank you for covering this topic. No one knows exactly what happened to the children, but the fact that the adults remembered “the children left us” 100 years later confirms something very tragic happened.

"It is now 100 years since our children left" is such a chilling line

Another cultural fun fact, in Hamlin is a street called "Bungelosenstraße" which is supposed to be the street where the children left. To this day, one is prohibited from playing music in this street, if you do you will be fined. ( I can't recollect if that actually ever happened, but the law is still on the books)

As a German, I grew up with many a fairytale, including that of the pied piper. To me, the old fairytales were always about educating children to be good and virtuous, as that is a common motive - the good and virtuous are rewarded/the bad are being punished somehow. My guess would be that the account of some emigration from Hamelin was embellished to fit this - it adds a moral component to make it a cautionary tale about holding up your end of a deal.

I live in Michigan, USA and there's a city here that was founded by mostly Bavarian German immigrants called Frankenmuth. It's got all kinds of Bavarian-themed restaurants and shops and some lovely architecture. Inside my favorite restaurant, Bavarian Inn, they have somewhat children-friendly versions of the Grimm's Fairy Tales of Cinderella, the Pied Piper, and another but I can't remember if it's Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or another princess-based story. It straight up says that the children who followed the Piper were never seen again after entering the woods and/or a cave in the woods, the obvious implication to adults being that they died somehow afterwards or were sold into slavery. If anyone ever is in the Frankenmuth area, I HIGHLY recommend visiting, there's lots of good food, fun stuff to do, and even a zoo

I grew up near Hamelin and we regularly visited the town for a day trip. Definitely worth visiting. Many people don't even know the town is real, I even met Germans who didn't know. It is really fascinating how the town is so influenced by an event that happened 750 years ago. Of course tourism is important, there is a museum with the towns history, in summer you can see a reenactment, and you can book a tour through the town lead by a piper. If I had to guess what happened, I subscribe to the theory that the children moved to what is now Romania, recruited by a group including musicians. There is even a village/town in Romania where the people claim to be the descendents of the children of Hamelin, and say that their ancestors came out of a cave not far away where the village is located.

My grandma who lived in Hameln always told the story with a more horrible ending. The piper drowns the children just like the rats before

On a trip there, several years ago, we were told that the most likely explanation was, as you mentioned, due to the economic downturn. Families were starving and in such a situation, with no social fund to support them, they were forced en-mass to sell their children, (into slavery or servitude). In which case the pied piper represented the agent/people smuggler who paid the families for their children, (probably a v small sum they had no choice but to accept), before he took them away. The story that arose afterwards was the cover story, agreed upon by the parents/town as a whole, to hide their culpability from the unsympathetic, moralistic authorities. Is this a version anyone else has heard?

You could do an entire series on folklore, fairy tales etc. Modeled like this.

I have a degree in history and when he starts getting into all the nuances of terms that mean different things in the past than today, that really is what history is all about. You really have to know A LOT to have an actual understanding, and it’s really fun when research comes together like that

I guess the term “time to pay the piper” came from this story.

I think this story must have a darker origin than just emigration of people somewhere else given it is remembered for so long. The explanation I've heard is related to a disorder called St Vitus Dance, which occurs primarily in children as a result of a contagious streptococcal infection in the throat that later results in an autoimmune neurological disorder where the afflicted have choreiform movements that appear to be like uncontrolled dancing. It can spread rapidly amongst populations and some individuals may die because of other complications of streptococcus like pericarditis or they are unable to eat. Perhaps somewhere along the way a poor piper got blamed for his music causing the affliction.

You know, it was actually common to sell your children into servitude back then (and where)! It's more likely that the town had a debt to pay and so they sold their children. This was a story on the Lore Podcast.

I once had the good fortune to find two German books in an antique book store, containing collected pre-Grimm folk stories and fairy tales. They were very interesting in how different most of them were: usually short, simple, and often weirdly specific. Like, some years ago there lived a bridge troll under the bridge over this specific river, outside that specific town. It led me to think I was seeing an evolution, where either real events or scary stories made to sound real were told and retold, getting more elaborate and less specific over time, and finally the Grimms came along and collected the best they could find. The Grimms Märchen I remember from my youth in northern Germany were the scarier versions, where the happenings were occasionally horrific, and the end was not always happy. I assume children 400 years ago were used to seeing events that we today would find extreme, and if you wanted to educate them about the virtues of a moral life, you had to be really clear about the dire consequences of straying from the path. I also remember a number of Greek and Nordic myths that were similar (or worse) in that regard, so the German stories were no standouts. German fairy tales are probably most commonly encountered today because they had such capable chroniclers in the brothers Grimm, not because Germans invented more of them than other people.

In my hometown there was a popular daycare named Pied Piper. Ever since learning the tale I thought that it was an extremely odd name for a daycare. Ever since learning about some of the atrocities that go on right under our noses, it doesn't seem as odd but definitely fills me with Dread

Captivating. I still remember the lame child that didn't disappear. He told the adults that in the pipers music he was promised fields of green grass, meadows that smelled of flowers and every day a great feast for all the children forever and ever. He couldn't stop crying now when he never got to see those wonders and only had the memories of what the piper had promised with his music. I think that is from the Grimm's version, but I could have read/heard it from somewhere else.

I love the gruesome and original versions of the brothers Grimm tales because they are so descriptive of the culture of past times. The fact that many versions of those tales existed got a bit lost in the process of culminating those tales and publishing multiple editions due to revisions, but at the same time, it shows the general Zeitgeist, values that were important and behavior that was acceptable vs unacceptable. Absolutely fascinating. Given that I grew up in Germany, I am always fascinated to see places where some tales took place. It is different to know that those tales aren't just based on pure fantasy.

I talked to a Czech friend about this and apparently they have a similar story, but about a fiddler who then danced people to death and/or kidnapped everyone and led them to hell. I've seen variations of the same tale in other places, including a statue in the city of Uppsala, Sweden. It's fascinating how tales spread throughout the world, especially since this one seems based on a real story (and the dance to the death isn't impossible either, see the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg.)

"It is now 100 years since our children left" What a killer way to start off your town records. Honestly. That's absolutely legendary. Oh, and the emigration theory sounds totally plausible too. Fairy tales and songs was how people remembered events back when the majority of the population could neither read nor write. And for good reason too, especially when it comes to song. Humans have an amazing ability to remember anything that is turned into a song. Think of your childhood and the songs you grew up with. Can you still remember the lines? Probably yes and that is a testament to how efficient it is to turn history and important information into songs and tales. To make you remember. To make sure you never forget.

I heard/read a version as a child where the Piper takes the children to the river and leads them all into it to drown. Footnote for Children's Crusade based on what I have read over the years, the majority of the children never made it anywhere close to the Holy Land. They were grabbed and sold into slavery along the way

Simon, I heartily recommend the 1957 Pied Piper movie starring Van Johnson. I remember it for featuring Grieg's ominous "In the Hall of the Mountain King".

A theory I heard decades ago was something like this: The usual setup, piper, rats, year and a day, But at some point ergot infected the grain of the local grainhouse that the baker used, They made bread or similar from the grain, which drove the adult villagers mad, and they killed their own children. And because the piper suddenly popped up at the same time, they basically lynched him, and put all the bodies in a cave or mass grave, and laid all the blame on him. Now THAT is a dark story!

My dad read this to me as a kid and I asked him what "pied" meant. "It means he only ate pie because it gave him magic powers". 😅

I love when KZfaq isn’t a dick to me with the algorithm and actually finds me videos pertaining to my interests (in this case, mythology, folklore, and fables…oh my!), and this is fantastically well done!! I could SWEAR this guy seems so similar to that BBC reporter that the whole internet agrees is the best interviewer (aside from hot ones, obviously). I haven’t slept in days, so I could be hallucinating this video altogether, but am I wrong??

I always liked this story as a kid. The lesson I got from it was always keep your word.

The think I find interesting about this story is that unlike many fairytales and legends, it has a very specific place and time where it is supposed to have taken place

Definitely agree with the last theory. Also it kinda explains why there were similar stories from other towns. If there were recruiters coming from Transylvania to Lower Saxony, they weren't only going to Hameln.

I always loved this story as a kid & I’ve heard the version involving the lame child but I always remember reading a “fuller version” at my grandmother’s house. One most haven’t heard of & I don’t know of it’s origins, she’s literally 100 years old & in a home & I’m almost 40 so it was a long, long, long time ago I read this book. In that version (a collection of fairy tales & version that I assume was either hers as a child or one of her step children’s or children’s) after the children went into a cave they lived in a waking sleep, I’m guessing a coma but one child remains awake. This child either tricks the piper to realise him/her or the piper can’t stand dealing with the child lol either way they’re allowed back through the mountain. Now, although it seems to the child it’s only been a day or two when they return to the hamlet they discover it’s been a hundred years and even though their parents have died & new people have moved in to populate the hamlet…none of them dare have children because of what happened. So this kid rocks up, everyone freaks out & the story ends with the child being taken in by an elderly couple or something. It’s been a long ,long time since I read it but I remember being terrified lol but also mesmerised by the story & the accompanying illustrations.

A truly excellent analysis for a 16 minute video. Really points to some of the issues with understanding history, especially relating to the cultural meaning of terms and how they change over time - just consider the term 'bastard' for example. When I was 11 years old, this meant someone whose parents were not married. Now it means a very mean, selfiish person, and that's in less than one lifetime. Just consider the implications of interpreting history in years well before dictionaries. And of course, this channel has high quality comments that are well worth reading.

There is this creepy Czech stop-motion animated adaptation of the Pied Piper from 1986 where in revenge he turns the town's folks into rats and leads them into the river

The versions I heard as a child always emphasized that the Piper took the kids because he thought cheapskates who weasel out of their debts aren't fit parents. I sort of assumed, when I thought it was just a fairy tale, that he carried the kids off to the lands of the fair folk - death to mortal adults, but eternal youth to the children.

Mother Goose and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, along with Esops’ Fables are loosely based on actual events and circumstances.

I love the Grimm Sleeping Beauty (correction: Snow White, thank you @aniisaweirdo),in which the dwarves get so tired of carting her inert body around the prince‘s castle that they punch her in the back, thus causing the piece of apple to fall from her mouth and then she wakes up. No romantic kissing awake, sadly, just a slap-up feast afterwards 😅

It’s also possible that the piper and the kids aren’t related at all. Like a Piper came and rendered a service for which he wasn’t paid, so he cursed the town or just in general said “you’ll be sorry!” Then some completely unrelated event happened that struck the younger population very hard and the town went “it was the Piper!” I mean people believed in some batshit things in the 13th century. Trying to logically figure it out with our modern knowledge might be pointless.

Loved this video. I also grew up in Germany close to Hamlin (Hameln) and I have also been to Transylvania and find the German settled towns there endlessly fascinating. When I first visited Transylvania in the late 80s (long story) there were still many Germans there, but when I returned in the 2010s most had left for Germany after the fall of communism in Romania and their legacy is dying in that part of the world. So that explanation makes so much sense to me, growing up with the stories of the brothers Grimm I can't believe I never put that historical context together. So fascinating, thank you for telling this story.

You really need to keep in mind how small Hameln was back then. The town that memorised the event in documents and art was small and paid out large sums to remember the children they mourned. Whatever happend was deeply traumatising - and so well know that the actual story was not told but everyone still knew what happend, including people in the surrounding area. People knew the same way people know about traumatising stories in your family and town... and they knew well enough to use short-cuts to talk about it.

Im in the middle of building a Pied Piper magic the gathering deck for my daughter right now. Outside of the basic story i cant remember what happens in the fairy tale so this is an awesome find. Im normally a casual criminalist viewer then binge into the shadows every once in a while.

German here. This story terrified me when I was child. Had nightmares. Mom did not understand why😅

Keep in mind also that mercenaries advertised their trade by wearing pied clothing. Every time that they succeeded in defeating a foe, they would cut a piece of the livery or flag of that foe and sew it into their clothes--the more pied the clothing, the more successful the mercenary. And, of course pipers led people to battle. The recruitment run might have had the threat of lethal force behind it.

This guy is that friend of a friend, that shows up at the party and completely destroys the vibe.

I remember hearing this story from my childhood. I watched an interesting TV documentary about this many years ago. There were some audio engineers or scientists who were studying this. They eventually found the correct notes or frequency and many rats started coming into the walls. They discovered that the rats would always appear and follow the sound to it's source when ever the music was playing. Thank you.

I've always loved the Brothers Grimm fairytales. My 5th grade teacher also loved them and used to read them to us; her favorite was The Juniper Tree, but I do distinctly remember her reading us the Pied Piper and the whole class being super creeped out by it.

As a testimony to how deeply this story is ingrained in our culture -- not only in Europe, but here in America -- note this: In 1966, Crispian St. Peters released a song called "I'm the Pied Piper." (It's a catchy little number, look it up.) It was a pretty big hit, charting in the Top 10 here and in other countries, and I'm sure everyone I knew heard it. And I can't remember anyone having to ask, "What's a Pied Piper?"

A common interpretation of the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, dated to 26 June 1284 and recorded in Hamelin records that (the earliest of such records dating from 1384: "It is 100 years since our children left") when a group of 130 children from the town of Hamelin (German: Hameln), in present-day Lower Saxony, were led away from their hometown by a piper (who may be a folk memory of a lokator) is that this related to an emigration event as part of the Ostsiedlung (i.e. Eastern settlement). The destination is usually supposed to have been Prignitz, Uckermark, and Pomerania, but a minor alternative theory suggests settlement in Transylvania. Since the early 13th Century and for many decades after, Hungarian kings had been encouraging settlement to the borderlands of Transylvania: which was then Hungarian territory. The invitations for productive immigrants were made to bolster populations decimated by the invaders from the East. A noted feature of the Saxon / German settlers who accepted the invitations, was that they were not only charged with defending the borderland territory (the main reason for the invitation to them to immigrate) but also to maintain themselves, rather than be dependent on the King's purse as mercenaries through agriculture or MINING. It strikes me that this feature of MINING as an occupation lends more credence to the Emigration theory for the Pied Piper story. The story ends with the ''children'' (emigrating citizens) of Hamelin ''disappearing'' into a Cave in a Mountain. How else does one describe what miners do...? They go into... ''disappear''... into entrances into mountains in search of ore.

Wow. Simon, your stories always amaze me. I love your videos, and I love you for making them! I believe that when you love the art, you love the artist as well. I'm American, and I'm humiliated by the things that are going on in my country now. I am so grateful to you for giving me something to take my mind off of the things that are going on here. I treasure your videos.

Simon needs a channel where he reads fairly tales and other stories

I find the theory interesting that connects the story to the cases of Dancing Fever which was sweeping across Europe during the same time period, sometimes involving colourful figures leading the processions. In these accounts, groups of people, sometimes children but usually adults too, would begin dancing, and others who saw them dancing would catch the dancing bug and join in dancing, but once they start dancing they don't stop. They kept dancing til they collapsed, and sometimes died.

Once you can almost get over how mind-numbingly shocking that stoey is, the pieces actually fall together perfectly and it's like, "Oh yeah, I've seen this behavior in our own time. This is just eternal human nature endlessly repating itself, resurfacing in every age and on every continent using whatever material means are available at the time." And I'll conceptually draw a big circle around flamboyant "clown" personalities who outwardly obsess over the bright and cheerful, but inwardly lack any ounce of true love at all-and this flaw manifests in the most horiffic ways, such as an irrisistible gravitation to children (who's fresh senses and unjaded minds love the colorful and musical stimulation) motivated by an adult fear and fascination with mortality, to which the presense and/or usefullness of young children and adolecents seems like the obvious antidote.....one way or another. I had never heard any version where the piper's music was inaudible..... But, through other topics, had already reached a private conclusion that the Middle Ages of Europe were indeed dotted with experiments in infrasonic or hypersinuc music-particularly weird social experiments on unsuspecting villagers. Go look up Jaw-harp techno..... 🤘😎 And contemplate the possibilities while keeping these facts in mind: jaw-harp is one of the oldest instruments known to mankind, was already popular pretty much everywhere millennia ago, and large or weighted ones can easily reach frequencies 20hrz and below-beats humans can feel but not hear, given enough volume/amplitude.

When this started, I anticipated a "cereal killer" gag...

I mean who knows, but I could also see this being some sort of ransom. A local lord or invading army levied a tax or tribute against the town and when the town failed to meet the demands of the tribute, this person rounded up the town's children and sold them off eastwards as domestic servants and worse.

I wonder if the story could be linked to *_dancing mania_* , which is a phenomenon that used to occur in the past where large groups would seemingly begin moving / dancing erratically, generally until they collapsed from exhaustion. The cause of such events are still unknown but they are numerous contemporaneous records documenting such events. Notably, there was a recorded incident where a large group of children from the town of Erfurt dance and jumped all the way to the town of Arnstadt, some 20km (approx. 12.5 miles) away. The incident occurred in 1237 and bears some resemblance to the Pied Piper story, with Hamelin about 200km away from Erfurt.

Thank you for this fascinating episode. It's well done, and the illustrations are really pretty, which makes it a bit easier to listen such a dark story.

I just got the chills from listening to you. Amazing narration. Thanks.

Me, who earned an English lit degree and an amateur historian specializing in pre-800CE European textiles: it boggles my mind how precise people can get with dates in some fields. For Iron-Age European textiles, getting within 50 years is basically witchcraft. And here we are with with a precise year! I love it.

I knew a girl in high school whose first and middle names were Piper Hamlin. I guess her parents didn’t do their research.

I love seeing all the different theories in the comments it’s so cool. Hopefully we find out the exact truth some day

Splendid video. Clear, fluent and fascinating from beginning to end. Congratulations.

2:40 - Chapter 1 - The story 8:05 - Chapter 2 - The historical record 10:40 - Chapter 3 - So what actually happened

I personally think he may have lead the children into a cave and then destroyed the exit to the cave thus sealing the 130 children into the mountain

This video was great! I really love mythology as well as exploring where a myth or fable came from. Thanks for this

Very educational! Thanks.

I used to live in Hameln as an army brat, when I moved back to the UK and said to people that I lived in the pied Piper town they didn't believe that it was a real place until I pointed it out on a map

I always had a theory that the piper actually got rid of the rats wasn't paid so he poisoned the children by giving them food that had the same poison as he fed the rats.

This tale is ripe for a horror film rendition. Id watch it.

We have a similar tale originating from the state of Georgia. Apparently The Devil challenged a young man named Johnny to a fiddle duel with them both putting up something valuable as the prize. Legend has it Johnny won a golden fiddle that day but went on to destroy his career by turning to Jesus and refusing to curse in any of his tunes that gained him his fame. I guess betting your soul has consequences even if you win.

Interesting. I'll have to look it up because I was always told/read that many of the children on that 'crusade' were sold into slavery. As for the piper story, the mystery surrounding it's origins shows how much language changes over time.

That this likely happened makes it even worse. Kudos to the writer and Simon’s delivery- more like this please

The 130 children were taken by an alien with a device that the early people thought was a flute. They entered the opening of a landed flying craft that had colorful lights, that they refer of pied colors. They say the cave disappeared, it actually left.

Simons like "AHHHGGG i almost swallowed some of the juices!" Coughs uncontrollably.

He gets so excited about the magic spoon ones

So many questions come to mind like "If a piper took kids to a mountain, then what mountain? Why is it never named in specific?" I've lived nearly all my life in the same region and know the names of all prominent mountains within a day's walk. I imagine the folk of Hamelin would have a similar knowledge of their surroundings. If the children were taken by force, how were they not retrieved? I could see sneaking them away during church services, but I can't imagine parents not furiously pursuing. How were they really taken (if so)? Not a magic flute. For one man it would be a bit like herding cats, again slowing their march. These and other questions have me believing the theory that young citizens voluntarily left. Even the town record says "since the day our children left" not "were taken". While I realize the original German might not have that precision, the English translation does seem to lean towards something other than kidnapping.

What doesn’t make sense about a lot of these metaphorical origins is the actual historical references to a specific event on a specific date. The fact all versions have the Mayor’s teenage daughter go missing, among a specific 130 children. To start off the town’s history by honoring the 100th anniversary of this tragic event.. all of this just doesn’t speak to anything but an actual event where 130 children in this town were lured away by an outsider and never seen again. A flamboyantly dressed Piper is someone who actually could draw the attention of all the town’s children who are drawn to partake in a little adventure to the woods or caves, where he could have had additional men waiting where they proceed to bound and kidnap them all for whatever nefarious purposes.

The lesson is, when its time to pay the piper, you pay the piper

I remember hereing like 20 different storys of this same one years back in primary school. One of which lead me down the terrifying realization that the story might not have always been about rats.

The podcast "Our Fake History" has a great episode on the Pied Piper. He breaks down all the most well-known theories and facts to get to the bottom of the story.

When I was stationed in Germany I went by Hamlen and there was the Pipers statue right in front of the river , nuclear poweplant cooling towers in the background across the river. Was kind of creepy.

Having never heard the story, I came into this thinking it was a story of a flute player being hit in the face with a pie.

So, the most supported of the main theories is "A bunch of people moved"? That's pretty light, especially for this channel!

The Pied Piper tale is a testament to our quest to find truth in folklore. It prompts us to explore beyond the superficial, where metaphor often masks historical events, and reminds us that childhood is a fleeting thing. It reminds us of the harsh reality of our past, no matter how enchanted it may be.

Great video! This is great timing... I'm currently working on a stage adaptation of this fairy tale.

I support the emigration theory as the most likely as well, but I have a pet theory: the town might have had an outbreak of polio, which children are at much higher risk of than adults. It leans into why there were several towns in the area where children might've been affected, and could even come into the idea of the adults not paying their dues and the children paying for it (maybe some adults got sick first, but they thought they got past it and in their hubris didn't realize the children were all sick). It being a piper might also be an unfortunate dark joke to indicate that the gait of the children affected by polio made them look like they were skipping or dancing unevenly.

I love the Grimms' fairy tales. I took a whole class on them in college and visited Hanau where they were from. Folklore is so interesting to me, but especially the classic German tales.

I believe it’s a cautionary tale against believing people with silver tongues, what if an outsider came claiming to know of some “paradise”, perhaps 130 people followed him and were never seen again. Think about how many people died on the Oregon trail seeking a place they only heard stories of.

It's so weird, hearing someone else talk about my hometown.

I love your videos. Amazing editing, amazing content, amazing story-telling, the whole thing is perfect.

Nice video! If you're looking for another fairy tale, that might actually be a true legend, you already mentioned one in the beginning: Snow White. In the German text, Snow White is sent "zu den sieben Zwergen, hinter den sieben Bergen" ("to the seven dwarfs, behind the seven mountains"). There actually is a mountain range called "das Siebengebirge", which is also referred to as "die Sieben Berge" ("the Seven Mountains"). North of these mountains, there are centuries old coal mines. Seen from the South, that could be the place that Snow White is sent to. There have been various young women of noble descent from Southern Germany, who were sent behind that mountain range by their parents. The descriptions of some of these actually match Snow White's description pretty well.

I am 52 now. I remember doing a production of the pied piper story when I was at infant school about 5 years old ...I was the lame boy who survived because he couldn't keep up with the others !

To anyone who thinks that a man playing music and all the children following him has never seen a slow moving ice cream truck driving through a neighborhood.

Years ago I had a picture book of the story, the ending had one crippled boy who couldn't follow the others up the mountain, and is found sitting on a rock.

The Browning poem is my favourite version. That refers to the children being lured off or captured (trammeled) to live in Transylvania.

This story has always creeped me out. Would love to know what really happened. We can only speculate.

As a child of Hamelin (or Hameln in German) I really appreciated your video on our lore. I know the story and all of its historical foundations inside and out yet I couldn't help but watch my favorite casual criminalists take on it. Also its always wild to see how famous this wee old town actually is - for its rats and disappeared children.

If you've never read it, read Robert Browning's Victorian poem of the story. It may not be accurate, but the poetry is marvellous.

In my grandma's version, the Pipers musical instrument was actually an opium pipe! He got the kids strung out, they end up following him out of town and into involuntary servitude.

Just in case anyone is wondering, it’s $40 for a box of that magic spoon cereal. That’s insane

It's worth noting, the pied piper fits in with another common legend of the time: the Ratwife. Much like the story of the pied piper, a ratwife would lure all the rats in a town out into a nearby body of water.